Ground Becomes More Fertile For Gonzales Mayoral Run As Crime Epidemic Rages On, Plus: MLG Needs A Spring Break And McCamley's Downfall

Keller and Medina

If Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales is having second thoughts about running for Mayor of ABQ he can put them on the back burner. The explosion in the city's murder rate alone is enough to make a challenge to Mayor Tim Keller a major political event with the seeds of an upset already planted.

(Gonzales officially announced his candidacy Monday morning with a two minute video.)

The media murder meter has the city at 35 homicides so far this year but our cop watchers say it may be near 40 as cases under investigation are closed out. That puts the city on track for an annual murder rate in triple digits. ABQ, always a violent town, has never seen anything like this. Never. 

If ABQ approaches or surpasses a 100 or more homicide rate as the November election nears, how would the city react? What would be the spin to that ignominious event? Would it be brushed off as the "new normal" and would an acquiescent public buy in? 

The political community is carefully watching polling results from the ABQ congressional district election to see where crime stands on voters' list of concerns. If it heads higher the prospect of a tight mayoral race would loom large. 

As to why so much of the violence is now occurring at inexpensive hotels and motels, former APD Seargent Dan Klein opines that it could be because during this pandemic many homeless are being housed there courtesy of the city. The homeless is a population heavy with mental illness and drug addiction. 

Here's how the campaign is being framed by Alligators of a pro-Manny tilt: 

Keller and CAO Sarita Nair have gone way too far left on policing. Ambitious Chief Medina goes bumbling along for the ride. Keller took tentative steps to get the Feds to lighten up on the consent decree governing APD but then backed off. Now we have plunging police morale, a record murder rate and still sky high property and auto thefts. Sure, ABQ is a progressive city in many ways, but there's an old adage from Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, himself a former police chief: "A conservative is a liberal who was mugged the night before." 

And now the personal relationship problems of Medina's son have spilled into the public forum and have led  to a city council discussion of changing arrest procedures with Councilor Pat Davis and Chief Medina leading the charge. Really? While the bodies pile up in Davis' district and elsewhere? 

TAKE A BREAK?

Gov. Cuomo 

Maybe the Guv should take a spring break and get away from the news cycle that's been clobbering her. That includes sensational headlines over the settlement she made with former campaign staffer James Hallinan in the infamous Crotchgate case. And her critics aren't through with her over the mishap. They dig up this MLG WaPo quote on the sex harassment charges against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo:

We have to take seriously all these allegations, and I’m frankly in that group of elected leaders that you believe the individual. You give credit and credibility there. If you don’t, we’re re-victimizing brave men and women who come forward, so that’s critical.

Maybe the Guv's thinking that we "believe" anyone who makes an allegation has shifted after her experience and that she now believes the accused should not immediately be subjected to being cancelled from the culture or otherwise shunned. After all, she strenuously denied sexual abuse allegations when she agreed to a $62,500 payout to Hallinan (and perhaps more.) 

There's much to be said of the positive impact of the #MeToo movement. The worst that can be said is that one of its tenets is often the Stalinesque: "Guilty when charged."

McCAMLEY'S DOWNFALL 

We broke the news here Thursday that Bill McCamley, secretary of the Workforce Solutions Department, would be leaving. He has and did so without much explanation but it's obvious McCamley was overwhelmed by the pandemic and the resulting massive unemployment claims (as were administrators in other states). The Guv's statement upon his departure was tepid, signaling she had lost confidence in him. 

As for McCamley, KOB-TV's Megan Abundis combed his social media and found this April 1 post from the former secretary: 

I have nothing but pride and admiration for the people I work with, but trying to navigate a system designed a century ago for an economy that was vastly different, and never set up for the conditions we saw in the Pandemic, has been the most trying thing I have ever done. My emotional state for the past year has mostly consisted of a numbness only broken through by spikes of pure, wall punching, rage. This hasn’t been… healthy. For me, nor the people around me.

Bill McCamley stepped it up a notch and won a cabinet post, but the severe pressure of a pandemic and the vagaries of La Politica sent him tumbling to the ground.

THE BOTTOM LINES

Sandoval County Commissioner Jay Block became the first GOP contender for the 2022 GOP gubernatorial nomination over the weekend he made his announcement in Rio Rancho. Here is video.

This is the home of New Mexico politics. 

E-mail your news and comments. (newsguy@yahoo.com)

Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here. 

(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2021